Chapter 96: Chapter 96: The Omnipresent Church

’Is the Church getting a little too worldly?’

Zog wondered.

’They want to get into games, and now Magic Vision too? And they’re so eager about it. I thought they were all about reducing entertainment?’

"It’s not for entertainment, but to better spread the Goddess’s teachings," the Bishop said with a chuckle, sipping his tea. "Why can’t Magic Vision be used to broadcast interpretations of the classics, or lead everyone in prayer?"

"So, what is it that you want?"

"A dedicated Magic Vision station for the Church."

Zog understood. The Church wanted to build an exclusive Magic Vision station to broadcast content that served their needs.

Theoretically, it was possible. The current Magic Vision Devices were designed with four channel slots. Besides the Zog Group’s main station, three more could be added.

This was achieved by adjusting the receiving Runes to pick up signals from different Magic Crystal Stone avatars.

The only problem was stability. It was very easy to turn the channel dial and end up receiving nothing at all.

So, if they were to do it, it would have to be a dedicated Church Magic Vision Device that could only receive the Church’s Magic Vision station.

Zog had no intention of agreeing to such an arrangement.

He hadn’t gotten into Magic Vision just to sell devices. In fact, to popularize the Magic Vision Devices, he had kept the profit margin on the machines themselves extremely low.

The money he made from selling one Magic Vision Device was less than what he earned from selling ten decent Yo-Yos.

Moreover, he often ran promotions, offered discounts, held raffles, and gave them away as prizes in competitions.

Only the competitions broke even, because contestants had to pay an entry fee to get on the course.

His fundamental goal was to use it to expand his cultural influence.

First, create the biggest promotional platform currently possible, then monetize the traffic.

The profits all came from advertising and the increased sales of his other products.

For example, he had used it to open up markets for his tea drinks and snacks, and he also advertised upcoming games on Magic Vision.

The most dramatic example was the Yo-Yo. After *Firepower Young King* aired, sales reached an all-time high. One month’s sales generated an entire year’s worth of previous revenue.

Moving pictures, after all, had a much broader audience than comics.

So if a Magic Vision Device could only show Church content, what would Zog have to gain?

"I’m afraid that would be very difficult. Currently, we can only broadcast this one set of programs from Twin Tower City."

Zog rejected the Bishop’s proposal.

"However," he said, changing his tune, "we could deliver our content to the cities under the Church’s patronage, and leave some blank airtime for you to use as you see fit."

The Pope on the Feilin Continent truly did have divisions, not to mention many cities. The Pope’s Country was even the third-largest nation on the continent by land area.

Zog didn’t want to give up such a huge market. He had already sold game consoles there; Magic Vision Devices should be possible too.

Furthermore, if the Church successfully adopted Magic Vision, it would serve as a showcase for merchant guilds in other regions.

Many people were currently taking a wait-and-see approach. The cost of becoming a Magic Vision distributor wasn’t low, and if the programming failed to be delivered, it was entirely possible they could lose their shirts. They needed a success story.

The Bishop took another sip of tea. Ever since receiving the Goddess’s oracle, he had been planning to cooperate with the Zog Group long-term.

He was desperate to advance.

He had joined the conservative faction because it was one of the more powerful factions within the Church.

Being a bishop assigned to an outlying city was not his ultimate goal.

’The Goddess has been silent for many years. Am I the only one to have received her oracle again?’

’There’s no way to be sure.’

As a massive organization with no external enemies, the Church’s internal politics were anything but peaceful.

He had already drawn considerable criticism from his brothers and sisters in the faith for introducing games, but it had also earned him the support of many lay believers.

’Everything has a price. It’s just a matter of weighing whether the benefits are worth the cost.’

’If it were a Magic Vision service where he had complete control over the content, it would undoubtedly be worth it.’

’But in the current situation, it was still an unknown whether it would earn him enough prestige and support...’

"The Magic Vision Devices won’t be limited to one channel forever. Once we develop the channel-switching function, we will provide the Church with its own exclusive station."

Noticing the Bishop’s hesitation, Zog upped the ante. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"A Magic Vision station managed by you. You will be the Zog Group’s exclusive agent within the Church."

"Very well. May the Goddess bless you." The Bishop finally made his decision.

’Your Goddess certainly won’t be blessing me,’ Zog thought, smiling as he extended his right claw to seal the deal.

"Oh, there is one more thing," the Bishop said suddenly. "Priest Andrei’s game has had a rather... tepid reception so far. When Magic Vision enters the Pope’s Country, would it be possible to create a dedicated promotional video to advertise the game at the same time?"

Although the game was made to fulfill the Goddess’s oracle, the Bishop had used his own money to fund it as a show of loyalty. Naturally, it would be best if he could recoup his investment.

’Priest Andrei’s game is finished?’

’Since when?’

That was Zog’s first reaction.

The Bishop, being a big client, had paid all the expenses upfront, so who would bother to keep tabs on how Priest Andrei was developing his game?

Zog had assigned a development team to the Priest, and his instructions to the team members were that as long as they didn’t go over budget, the young priest could develop whatever he wanted without needing to report back to him.

He never imagined it would actually be finished and put on sale, let alone that the reception would be so poor.

The ’poor’ part was Zog’s own inference. When someone like the Bishop described something as "tepid," it meant it was utter garbage.

"This is something my team will need to discuss specifically. Bishop, please wait just a moment," Zog said, stalling for time.

"Please, go ahead."

Leaving the reception room, he hurried to get the details from Elsa.

"The priest’s game is finished? Which game collection is it in?"

Since they didn’t yet have the technology for inserting cartridges or swapping discs to play new games, the games on the consoles were fixed and required custom-designed machines.

Large-scale games like Auto Chess had their own dedicated consoles.

Smaller games, like *Resistance Army* or *Twin Tower City Blocks*, were released in collections. A console would typically contain five to ten of these games and was relatively cheap.

"His game is its own collection. Twelve installments in total, made for a ’Church Game Console.’"

"Huh?"

Zog quickly activated his Illusion Mimicry and found Priest Andrei’s game on the server.

There really were twelve installments, titled *Holy Mountain Journey* I through XII.

Anyone who didn’t know better would think it was trying to ride the coattails of *Shadow of Evil*.

He opened one up and saw that it was a two-player game.

"Elsa, log in!"

Zog spent about ten minutes trying it out, testing each of the twelve installments for less than a minute on average.

’Who in their right mind would buy this thing?!’

The twelve games involved climbing the Holy Mountain via twelve different routes, facing various trials and tribulations along the way. At every difficult point, a narrator would recite famous quotes from the Church’s scriptures.

It would have been fine if it were just a boring platformer.

But the key was the player-controlled characters: one had no arms, the other had no legs, and they were tied together. The control scheme was incredibly awkward.

What was even more outrageous was that there were no save points on the way. If you made a mistake, you would just keep falling, and where you landed was anyone’s guess. It was possible to fall all the way back to the start.

"Why would he do this?"

"According to the team members involved in the design, it’s meant to test the piety of the pilgrim’s heart," Elsa replied.

’Climbing a virtual Holy Mountain, experiencing a cyber-pilgrimage.’

’Priest Andrei really knew how to torture people.’

’Then again, a game like this wasn’t necessarily unsellable.’

Zog scratched his chin and returned to the reception room.

"About this promotion... the costs aren’t low, you know," Zog said, looking troubled.

"If it can increase sales, we can discuss a profit-sharing arrangement," the Bishop said, figuring he should recoup whatever costs he could.

"Oh, come on. Given our relationship, and after you’ve already paid so many Gold Coins, it would feel wrong for me to take a cut from the promotional earnings," Zog said with a sly grin.

"Fifty percent."

"That’s too much."

"Thirty percent."

"Deal."

"How will we promote it?"

"We’ll hold a live broadcast in the first regions of Twin Tower City and the Pope’s Country to get Magic Vision."

Zog planned to use this as an opportunity to test the live broadcast technology that transmitted video directly through the planes.

He had already tested it late at night by broadcasting the starry sky, but he had yet to broadcast any official content.

"A ’live broadcast’?" This was a new term for the Bishop.

"It means the captured footage is shown on the Magic Vision Device in real-time. We’ll have a live broadcast of someone playing Priest Andrei’s game. We’ll have Toto do it."